Chapter 2. Annette #2
Blake Davis didn’t look much like his father. He was tall and lean and strong and youthful. I’d wager he still got carded, despite being thirty-five. He had a dark beard in desperate need of a trim, but what would look sloppy on another man just made him appear wild and rugged.
“I take it you haven’t told Ava yet,” I said, hurdling the niceties like it was an Olympic event.
He glanced past me to make sure the kids weren’t close enough to hear. “I haven’t, and neither will you.”
“She’s struggling,” I said. “She needs to understand what she is.”
“She’s too young. I didn’t tell Morgan until he was thirteen.”
“Ava isn’t Morgan.” My son was smart, so why couldn’t he see that being eleven years old with succubus blood was a very different experience when you were a girl? “She has the right to know why people react the way they do.”
“She has the right to enjoy being a normal kid for a while.”
“She’s not—” I stopped myself. It was one of many familiar arguments, and we both knew the script by heart. “All right. She’s your daughter. I’m not trying to cause problems.”
“I know, Mom.” Blake sighed and ran a hand through his wavy hair. “You never try to. Problems just find you. Then they follow you around like fucked-up baby ducks. It was always a new case or a new relationship or a visit from some weird relative from your mother’s side . . .”
I did my best to keep my defensiveness under control. I had spent part of this morning airing harvester stink out of the shop, so maybe he had a point. I changed the subject rather than admit it. “How are things at the bank? Have you met anyone?”
“The bank is fine. I’ve met lots of people. No, I’m not interested in starting a relationship with any of them.”
“That’s good. That you’re meeting people, I mean.” For the past year and a half, Blake had worked as a loan officer at Horizon Bank. I suspected it was part of his unspoken plan to drive me crazy by living the most vanilla, mundane life possible.
His shoulders tightened and lifted half an inch, like he could read my annoyance.
“I know you think sitting at a desk all day is a special kind of hell, but I enjoy my job. I like talking to people and helping them get the money they need for their homes and their cars and their futures. It’s a good job.
Reliable. Stable. It lets me take care of the kids. ”
“You’re a good parent,” I said as a peace offering. A hell of a lot better than I’d been, and we both knew it.
He left that unsaid, a small kindness. “Tell that to their mom.”
“I’d be happy to, if you think it would help—”
“God, no.” His eyes were large with sudden panic. “I mean it, Mom. Don’t call Erin. Don’t text her. Don’t send her a letter. Don’t even think in her direction.”
“All right.” I raised my hands in surrender. “I’ll stay out of it, I promise.”
He relaxed slightly and turned to stare at the A-frame sign beside the door. A chalk drawing showed winged books fluttering about like butterflies over a field of wildflowers. Bright block letters read, APRIL SPECIAL: 10% OFF ANY BOOK WITH A FLOWER ON THE COVER.
“That looks like Morgan’s work,” said Blake.
“He drew the picture last weekend. Jenny did the lettering.”
Blake didn’t look at me. Maybe it was easier for him to talk that way.
“The last time I dropped the kids off with Erin, she called me later that night saying she wanted to try again. The worst part was that this time, she mentioned it to Morgan and Ava, too. Raising their hopes and forcing me to be the bad guy.”
Blake’s relationships had always been messy. Ever since his first crush back in middle school, he’d tortured himself with his own conflicted feelings and insecurities. “You still love her, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t love me.”
The pain in his words was like a kick to my gut. “How do you know that?”
“I don’t, and that’s the problem,” he snapped. “How am I supposed to know what’s real and what’s a response to demonic pheromones?”
And we were back to this fight. I heard the resentment and the blame in his words, even after all this time.
It wasn’t like I’d chosen to be half-demon, or to pass that blood and power along to my son and his children. If anything, it was my mother’s fault. Succubi weren’t supposed to fall in love or settle down with a mortal man or have a child.
Yet somehow, she’d made it work. She and Dad had been together for more than sixty years. They were still happy, living together in a suburb of Paris, eating canelés and drinking wine and having absurd octogenarian sex.
I guess the happy-relationship genes had skipped at least two generations. I turned the conversation back to my granddaughter and her right to know the truth. “Quand vas-tu le dire à Ava?”
“Quand elle a treize ans. Elle n’est pas prête.” His French was rusty. I’d insisted he learn my native language when he was a child, but it was obvious he hadn’t kept up. “Maman, je peux pas—”
“Tu ne peux pas, ou tu as peur?” You can’t, or you’re afraid to?
Blake turned to go. At the bottom of the porch steps, he said, “I appreciate you watching the kids, but I’m their father. I’ll decide when Ava’s ready.”
He left without saying goodbye. I watched him pull away in his safe, practical, utterly vanilla Honda Odyssey.
“That was great, Annette,” I muttered. “Good job bonding with your son.”
I had three minutes until the shop opened. I used one of them to gather my composure, then returned to the kitchen, where Ava was playing on her phone while Morgan rinsed dishes.
“Who wants to draw new shelf cards for Grandma?”
· · ·
A year earlier, Ava would have happily spent hours with the markers and colored pencils, doodling designs on index cards and adding notes like Local Writer or My dork brother loves this series! Her shelf cards had sold so many books, I’d started giving her a commission.
Today, she’d just disappeared into the basement, muttering about wanting to hit the punching bag. From the volume of the thumps and creaks coming from below, she was hitting it with a baseball bat, or maybe a sledgehammer.
Morgan sat in one of the high-backed armchairs by the window, a cozy little reading nook I’d set up almost twenty years back, right after we opened the shop.
His chemistry book sat unopened on the small end table while he drew a series of cartoon cats telling shoppers to buy the Little Book of Cat Magic.
I watched him sketch out a fat tabby with long whiskers. “That’s cute.”
He jumped and covered the card. “I’m not a very good artist, but—”
“Don’t do that. Never respond to compliments by putting yourself down. You don’t diminish yourself for anyone.”
“Sorry.” He set the card aside and glanced around, making sure we were alone. It was early enough the shop was still empty. “Grandma, is there any way to block the effect that you—that we have on people?”
I thought about what Blake had said. “You’re asking because of your mom?”
He grimaced. “It’s embarrassing. I feel bad for her. It’s been four years since the divorce, but every time she sees him, she starts simping.”
I added simping to my mental list of teenage slang to look up later, but I could guess the meaning from context.
I’d had the same problems with a number of my own exes, some of whom had stalked me for months before I taught them how important it was to respect a woman’s boundaries.
Especially a woman who carried a very big knife.
“We create desire, not love. But desire can be confusing.”
His cheeks turned slightly pink. “I know that. But come on. She followed her ex-husband to Massachusetts. Who does that?”
“Maybe she just moved here to be closer to her children.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave me a look, the same expression of pity edged with condescension that I’d seen so many times on his father’s face.
“To answer your question, no,” I said. “It’s not something we can fully control or turn off. Especially given how your dad feels about her.”
Shit. Had I said that last bit out loud?
Morgan’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, how he feels? What did he say?”
The bell over the front door rang, and a boy in his late teens walked in. Thank god for customers. I hurried away from Morgan without answering. “Welcome to Second Life Books and Gifts,” I called. “Can I help you find anything?”
“Just looking,” he mumbled without making eye contact.
He ducked into the gifts-and-souvenirs side and made a show of studying a display of handmade buttons on consignment from a local college student and crafter.
About half were witch-themed. The rest were a blend of LGBTQ pride designs, climate awareness slogans, and cat stuff.
I returned to the counter and watched him on the cameras. He was fit and good-looking enough, with disheveled blond hair and just a little stubble. Strong jawline. Broad shoulders. The dark, broody eyes that were so attractive to young women who didn’t know any better.
He wore a black trench coat over a tan button-down shirt and black jeans. It was a good look for him. Not terribly practical on what the weather forecast predicted would be an unusually warm April day, though. But it was ideal for shoplifting.
Good luck with that, kid. Temple’s magic made sure none of our inventory wandered off. His spells didn’t do any permanent damage, but depending on how much this kid tried to steal, he might stumble and fall, split his pants, or soil himself when he stepped out the door.
Jenny kept a folder of security footage of would-be thieves triggering Temple’s spells. She played them on repeat when she needed a laugh. Her favorite was the woman who stepped outside and was immediately besieged by seagulls, one of whom flew off with her hair extensions clutched in its feet.